ahwiles, binners - I don't think engineering is too badly paid. £26k is around the starting salary on a graduate engineer on a training scheme these days. A graduate engineer who stays in engineering should expect to get to £50k perhaps a little more, but most graduate engineers move into management or a variety of forms of consultancy - earnings can be pretty good.
Nursing didn't used to need a degree, but that has changed in the same way that 50% of kids going to uni has.
Teaching? Well they ain't rich but they aren't exactly struggling to eat either.

couple of points..
you dont have to go to university and going is no guarantee of sucess.

If you want to go you can go wherever you want as long as you can fulfill the entry requirements. the govt. loan you the money for education and living costs ( you can take work before or during the course or even save beforehand if you wish)

I still can't see how tuition fees are impacting inflation if (next to) no one is yet paying them back - anyone care to elaborate?

People may not be paying the loans back, but the government is still paying (the much larger) fees to the universities for their services. Inflation is the increase in the cost of goods and services. It doesn't really matter who is paying for it. Since there has been pretty much a universal increase in fees, the impact will be noticable in the inflation figures.

br - RPI is on a notional basket of goods, which obviously includes in this case tuition fees. The RPI records the prices, not necessarily the cashflow, of a trade. Whether the transaction is paid with debt, goodwill, or cash is not factored in, just the price at which the good or service was transacted.

It comes back to my earlier point too, which is that university fee hikes do not instantly impact upon standard of living, and even in the long run the interest and repayment rates are so low as to have a minor impact when they start to be paid anyway.